‘Spanish women have had no chances at all,’ cried Marjorie, raising her tone, as she adroitly shifted her ground, after the manner of her sex. ‘For their sake I mean to work—yes, to get to the level of a B.A., grandpapa, in spite of your most withering contempt.’
‘For the sake of Spain, benighted Spain!’ remarked the Seigneur genially. ‘My granddaughter’s blood is half Spanish, Mr. Arbuthnot. I had a son once—an only son——’ Could it really be that Andros Bartrand’s firm voice for a second faltered? ‘When he was no longer a young man he went to Cadiz, for health’s sake, and married, poor fellow, a Spanish girl who died at the end of the year. Marjorie has stayed a few times among her mother’s family, and has gone Spain-crazed, as you will soon find out for yourself.’
‘Crazed!’ rang Marjorie’s tuneful voice through the night. ‘I want to hold my hands out to my own people, yes, to teach, if I ever know anything myself, among the girls of our poor benighted Spain. And I am proud of my craziness. I thank you for the word, grandpapa. It is the prettiest compliment.’
The complexion of the family talk was threatening; Geoffrey Arbuthnot hastened his adieux. But Andros had still a farewell shot to discharge against the little witch.
‘Our poor benighted Spain is the one country in Europe with a decent peasantry of its own. Get Mr. Arbuthnot, get anyone who understands the matter, to talk to you about the English ploughman, and compare the two pictures. The Spanish peasant’s wife sews, knits, embroiders, reads her Mass-book and can cook a capital stew. Her drink is water. Infanticide is unknown. The men are hospitable, courteous, dignified. Among benighted people like these, Marjorie Bartrand proposes to preach the benefits of a liberal pauper education as exhibited in England.’
By the time the Seigneur’s ironies came to an end Marjorie’s small figure had vanished among the deepening shadows of the lawn. Fearful of losing sight of her altogether—for, indeed, Marjorie Bartrand was suggestive of something weird, sprite-like, and of a nature to take other form at an hour when owls do fly—Geff bade his host a hasty good-night and followed.
The girl herself was invisible, but a clear childish voice chanted the old ditty of Roland somewhere in the neighbourhood, ‘Like steel among weapons, like wax among women.’ Or, as Marjorie sang with spirit:
‘Fuerte qual azero entre armas,
Y qnal cera entre las damas.’